U.S. Pat. No. 4,497,196 describes in detail a stamping and forming machine of a type in which the strip material is fed from an endless source in a vertical plane through a plurality of individual modules, each of which contains stamping and forming tooling. In virtually all stamping and forming operations, punches and dies are used to punch out from the strip some of the material so that the finished products remain at the end of the forming operation. The punching operations result in the production of large numbers of small bits of scrap metal, commonly referred to as slugs, which must be continually removed from the vicinity of the punch and die so that they will not interfere with the operation of the machine. In a conventional stamping and forming press, in which the strip material is in a horizontal plane, these slugs are pushed from the strip and fall downwardly by gravity through an opening in the die plate and in the supporting structure under the die plate. When the strip material is in a vertical plane, however, the slugs cannot fall under the influence of gravity away from the strip and they must be removed by other means. The present invention is directed to the achievement of a slug removing system for such machines. The invention is further directed to the achievement of a sensing means for sensing the relative movement between two parts of a machine which ordinarily move in unison. The latter aspect of the invention is of importance in the embodiment described below for the reason that in the event of failure of the scrap removal system, the machine must be stopped immediately in order to prevent damage thereto by the accumulated slugs which would remain in the stamping area after failure of the slug removing system.